It took me a while to realize that what I was listening to was Dr. Drummel playing the concert grand piano from the confines of his wheel chair through the means of telekinesis. But it was a technological innovation as opposed to a psychological one. Whatever subtle distinctions one would want to draw, the thoughts travel through the ether, and express themselves by means of the lowered keys and hammered strings, as the wandering harmonies of the French composer Erik Satie fill the Mid-Century Modern magnificence of his Palm Springs home. This would be the present, year 2084, the Presidential Election party over, with strewn confetti upon the creamy white carpet, and used champagne flutes set aside, as the servants would make an entry around noon, as the eternal business of electioneering ends to continue again, where time is a circle and one grows dizzy.
I stood there wearing the clothes I hardly remembered casting onto the floor beside the bed in the guest bedroom, tucked away, with a window facing a tranquil courtyard. The day before I noticed the birds that gather around the mumbling fountain and Bougainvilleas exploding with color. I forgot the events leading up to my slumber.
However, I remember the dream – about an Epsilon, or a Cayote – as they are referred to in this New New California, surrounded and within the desert, except for the water diverted along the man-made canal – despite either of the two earlier Jerry Browns, with their long tenures as governor. The Epsilon was wrapped not unlike a mummy, in the long rags which is the traditional garb of the Cayotes. They are the rag-tag army that guard the battle-warn walls around Palm Springs – mostly from the dispossessed from the West.
Either the Cayote are the Epsilon, or the Cayote are a subset of the Epsilon. I haven’t been able to figure it out from the little that the people in Palm Springs are willing to talk about it – usually furtively, when no one else is around, or within earshot. Suffice it to say, the Epsilon are of a lower caste.
But the man I saw last night in my dreams, presumable an Epsilon, but I think, by the logic of my dreams, was merely disguised – a man with blue body paint over his taught skin, getting ready to don the attire of the warring Cayotes. He was not the creature of flesh burned by the radiation of the Diablo Canyon, the now long-defunct nuclear power plant, cast asunder by the earthquake. His flesh was not seared by its radiation, but instead was perfectly supple, as could easily be seen, even by the light of the moon and stars. Although, I was merely dreaming at the time.
